Forum rules
There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Please stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast. For long and complicated questions prefer the other forums within the support section.Before you post please read how to get help

11 wouldn't install cleanly on my Raid like 10 did (I did a workaround, but ech, prefer only one Raid volume), 12 is pretty and all but I am not ready for a 'smartphone' GUI. Just wunderin how long before I am forced to upgrade.

Last edited by tek_heretik on Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mint 10 is not a LTS- which has a Three Year cycle of support. ( Mint 5 Mint 9 Mint 13)

so, therefore it has a Two Year support cycle.& since it has now been available for a year, it therefore has another year of support, to go.

So what happens then?.

- the package list that Synaptic uses, will cease to exist.- the mint 10 itself will keep working, regardless of the lack of updates.- you can just keep on "using the thing" for as long as it still suits your needs.

As a example of this scenario:-

I have a Compaq EVO N880c that now has had Mint 5 ( Elyssa) install on it , for about 3 -4 years.

I quite recently upgraded both FF 3.5 to FF 5 (which is continuing to auto-update) & Opera up to V10 ( which also auto-updates itself)but had in manually install them, as Synaptic won't install them.

aside from those two things, - I haven't changed anything else & it still works just fine.

Yes, non LTS versions of Mint have an 18 month support cycle, so in April 2012 it will stop being supported. Just as a side note, LM 12 has MATE, which is a fork of gnome 2, which can be made pretty easily to look exactly like Mint 10.

MATE is a fork of Gnome 2 which is compatible with Gnome 3. Thanks to MATE, you can run both versions of Gnome on the same system.

MATE with Caja and mintMenu

MATE is present on the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. Users of the CD edition can install it via the mint-meta-mate package.

MATE is brand new, it's not completely stable yet, and it's missing a few parts. It's being actively maintained and with close collaboration between the MATE developers and Linux Mint. With time the project will gain maturity and provide users with a traditional and solid desktop experience.

Eventually, MATE will be in every way identical to Gnome 2 and represent the future of traditional desktops within Linux.

In Linux Mint 12, both mintDesktop (in the RC) and mintMenu (in the stable release) are adapted and receive full support to work with MATE.

They have improved MATE a lot since the release, and I find it to be stable now.

cwwgateway wrote:It has both in the DVD version. They are both in the release notes:

MATE

MATE is a fork of Gnome 2 which is compatible with Gnome 3. Thanks to MATE, you can run both versions of Gnome on the same system.

MATE with Caja and mintMenu

MATE is present on the DVD edition of Linux Mint 12. Users of the CD edition can install it via the mint-meta-mate package.

MATE is brand new, it's not completely stable yet, and it's missing a few parts. It's being actively maintained and with close collaboration between the MATE developers and Linux Mint. With time the project will gain maturity and provide users with a traditional and solid desktop experience.

Eventually, MATE will be in every way identical to Gnome 2 and represent the future of traditional desktops within Linux.

In Linux Mint 12, both mintDesktop (in the RC) and mintMenu (in the stable release) are adapted and receive full support to work with MATE.

They have improved MATE a lot since the release, and I find it to be stable now.

Huh? Where did you get that from? And even if it is real, NOT STABLE, NOT FINISHED. I remember reading the notes and all I saw was MGSE this and MGSE that, until MATE arrives (MGSE being a temporary 'soother' until MATE is ready). I think I know what is going on here, MATE was NOT installed by default but there for testing, so we are both right, the average newbie user kicking the tires is NOT going to dig down deep for an unfinished MATE, let alone even know what it is.

MATE is included on the dvd edition. I got that quote from the release notes. Here is a screenshot:MATE is, in my opinion, basically stable now. If you read the quote, which is from about a month ago, it says "it's not completely stable yet." I would like to point out the "yet," and say that it should at least be tried. It is very easy to access, simply log out, click the gear icon next to your name in the login screen, select "MATE" from the drop-down menu, and login. It is a bit ugly, but once you change the theme it can be made to look almost (if not completely) like previous versions of Linux Mint. Finally, if you go to linuxmint.com, and look at the Linux Mint 12 release, it has 2 pictures, one of mgse and one of mate, and says next to it "Linux Mint 12 featuring Gnome 3 and MATE!" Here is a screenshot:

As far as I know, you can't boot into mate from a live cd/dvd/usb, only into Gnome 3/MGSE or the fallback if your hardware doesn't support acceleration. So it isn't active during the live session, but once you install it it is there. However, when you install Linux Mint, Gnome 3/MGSE is the default login session. So I agree that it is much less noticeable than MGSE.